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Well the last game of the season is here as we take on regional rival Louisville in a Bearcat Blackout game! Tonight we celebrate our seniors (Kelli, Kay, Erin, Erin, Emily, Logan, and Lauren) and the accomplishments we have reached over the past 4 (or 5) years. It has been a year of ups and downs but I am so proud of how this 2011 team has competed. We have learned so much from each other and this is the first year we have been a cohesive unit from freshmen to senior classes. It takes a strong, passionate, competitive person to dedicate their college years to a team and a family. I am so honored to be a part of this senior class with such amazing girls. This team has taught me so many things over the years; how to compete when you feel like you have nothing left, how to sacrifice your social life for the better of the program, how to hold each other accountable even when the times are tough, and how to be a true leader. I am privleged and honored to be a part of this Bearcat family and I will take so many wonderful memories with me.

"Your only as good as your last performance so when the opportunity presents itself, be great because you might not get another." Come watch the last performance of 7 amazing seniors as we look to close out the 2011 season with a WIN! Kickoff is at 7pm at Gettler Stadium with a ceremony to honor the senior class starting at 6:40.

It's been a rough couple of games for the Bearcats in Big East play but tonight we start our turn around. We play Seton Hall at 7pm on Gettler. This game is part of UC's Homecoming Celebration so we are expecting a great turn out! The focus this week in practice has been competitive and sharp. I expect great things from the Bearcats tonight! If you are not busy and in the Cincinnati area, make sure to check out our game!

Sorry for such a long time in between posts! School, student teaching, and soccer have been kind of hectic the past few weeks so I apologize. This weekend we played South Florida and Marquette. After 110 minutes of pure intensity, passion, and rage we tied South Florida on Friday night. We dominated the game statistically and were unable to put a second goal in! Logan scored her first goal of the season, a freaking rocket from her left "club" and had one of the best celebrations of the season (aside from Schmidty's celebration after her UCONN goal!). Players 1 thru 31 all contributed to the result on Friday and it was upsetting we didn't come out on the winning end but trust me there will be good things for the Bearcats in the future. We have a fight about us that we won't give up. I am looking forward to the next few weeks of Big East play as we try to push our way into the Big East tournament! Make sure to check back this weekend to see how we did after we travel to Georgetown and Villanova!

After a successful weekend in Charleston, SC last week, the Bearcats continued rolling with a big win yesterday in our Big East conference opener versus DePaul! We finished the Charleston Cup with a 4-0 win versus Coastal Carolina to win the tournament! It was a complete team effort on Sunday and all 20 players who traveled got to play in the game. We had 4 players (Emily Hebbeler, Mackenzie Grause, Jazmine Rhodes, and Kristina Utley) on the all-tournament team and left Charleston with 6 crucial points on the road.

We trained hard this week and continued our success in our game first Big East game of the year versus DePaul. After a slow start and a lot of back and forth, we won 1-0 in double-overtime! We have now gone to overtime 4 times this season, winning twice and tying twice! Despite being outshot and not playing our best, we worked hard and never gave up. It was a GREAT result on the road and a great way to start off Big East play!

Today we had a light practice and helped out at the Pink Ribbon Girls Wiffleball tournament. Pink Ribbon Girls is an organization that supports breast cancer and our team is more than willing to help in any way possible as breast cancer is something that has affected almost everyone on our team in one way or another. It was amazing to see how many people showed up for such a great cause! We sold raffle tickets and applied pink ribbon tattoos on all the little kids.

Tomorrow we face another great test in Big East play as we play the defending national champions Notre Dame. The game is a double-header "White Out" with the mens team and will start at 3:30! It is going to be a good game and we have already pre-sold 500 tickets! It's going to be a great atmosphere to play in so if your in town, come check out the Bearcats as we look to start conference play off 2-0!

Tonight the Bearcats finally won an overtime game! We beat the College of Charleston 3-2 in double overtime in the opening game of the College of Charleston tournament. It was a full team effort with Jaz scoring the game winner in the 102nd minute with the assist coming from Grause. We went down in the first half and fought back to tie the game and go ahead one, only to have Charleston score with 10 minutes left. We never let that stop us and dominated the overtime periods, not allowing Charleston to have a shot on goal. Hebs did such a great job tonight holding off players and laying balls back into our midfield so it was no surprise when we cleared a ball from the back that Hebs held off her defenders and played a ball to Grause who was making a great slashing run. Grause's original shot was deflected by the keeper right to an oncoming Jaz who took one touch and shot the ball. GOAL! We all went nuts! We had a dog pile on the field and Jaz lead us off to cool down with the Cincinnati O-cheer! It was great to finally win in overtime after three tries!

We finished our night off with some dinner from Sticky Fingers BBQ and some partner ice baths! Poor Mollie had to keep time for EK and I and listen to us complain about the cold water! Tomorrow we have a light recovery practice after breakfast before heading to lunch in downtown Charleston. We are all really excited to walk around downtown Charleston but we were promised to make it back in time for the UC-Tennessee football game at 3:30!! Hopefully the football team can bring home a big win from a strong SEC school! We finish up our Charleston trip with a game at noon on Sunday versus Coastal Carolina. Were looking for another win to give us some momentum before we head into Big East play next week!

After a good showing on the road in Chicago last weekend the Bearcats came out with another strong week of practice. We ended our road trip 1-0-1, beating Northwestern 2-1 on Friday night and tying Loyola-Chicago 0-0 on Sunday afternoon. Coming away with no losses on the road was exciting, but not as exciting as the game Friday night in which Michelle got her 100th win as a head coach! After the game, we found out it was her 100th win and Hebs gave her a little gatorade shower to celebrate! 100 wins is certainly an accomplishment and is an attribute to how great of a coach Michelle is! She is such an amazing coach and we were honored to help her reach 100 wins!

We came out Tuesday morning for practice and the competition was great. We did a 6v6 tournament with 4 teams to determine our fitness at the end. We played 2 minute, 3 minute, and 4 minute games versus each of the other 3 teams. Wednesday we worked on our attack and painting out how we can be successful this weekend! We ended with a little scrimmage and some shooting. Thursday we did our usual day-before game routine and ended with our favorite game, Blondes vs Brunettes. We had a strong week of practice so I hope we continue that this weekend as we take on Western Carolina and Wisconsin.

We play Western Carolina tonight (Friday) at 7pm on Gettler and Wisconsin at noon on Sunday. Please note the Wisconsin game time has been moved an hour earlier from the original 1pm start time and will now be kicking off at 12pm! If your in the area make sure to come check out your Bearcats in action!!

This week is a special edition of Kickin It With KJ, Jae, Cravenor, Buczek, and Christi with guest star Kate Schmidt. Sunday we opened up the season with our first win against crosstown rivals, Xavier. The team prepared for the game with a dinner at Ashley Daniel's house. We came out strong with a goal in the first 25 minutes. It ended the game with a 1-0 win! We dominated the Musketeers, claiming the title of Cincinnati. The W was followed by Jazmine Rhodes leading the team through the O-Cheer and a much needed off day on Monday. This week the girls came out focused for a challenging week of practices. Jersday we left for chi-town and drove through downtown while KP gave the bus a "tour" of her home state. We went straight to Northwestern's field on the shore of Lake Michigan only to be attacked by spiders in the restrooms. Tonight at 7:30, Central Time, we're gearing up against Northwestern in hopes to bring home our second win of the season. Currently, KP is braiding the teams hair while singing country music, Jae is not happy. The girls focused and ready for the game tonight and cannot wait to see more of Chicago on Saturday. Hopefully we'll take a trip to the beach if we win!

Today is the last first game of a season for Kay Young, Erin Kaufman, Lauren Romanelli, Erin Petree, Logan Ballinger, Emily Hebbeler, and myself. It's such a great feeling because the the amount of hard work and preparation that goes into tonight will finally be played out....on the field in a real game! For the seniors mentioned above, and for the rest of this Bearcat team...we are ready. I can't help but think back to the previous three preseasons and still cannot believe that I just completed my last one. This program is special, this senior class is special, and this team is more than special. We have what it takes, and together...we are ready for tonight!

Join me and the Bearcats as we start our season TONIGHT! Come out and cheer on your Bearcats as we take on Cal-Poly 7pm at Gettler Stadium.

We finished up preseason with an exhibition game against Ball State Friday afternoon in Muncie. We played three 30 minute periods and everyone got a chance to play which was awesome to see. Despite the 1-0 loss, there were some really great things that came out of the game which will only help us prepare this week for our season opener against Cal Poly Friday night!

We treated yesterday's practice like we would any Saturday practice in between a Friday-Sunday game swing. We started off with a warm up, followed by another jog and stretch with Amanda and a technical warm up with Michelle. After we had finished warming up we played two 15 minute halves to get our legs moving again and it looked awesome. We were moving the ball with purpose and were making the right decisions on and off the ball for each other which made the game easy!

After we finished our practice we had about 20 minutes to shower off and get ready for our team social! Mrs. Ballinger (Logan's Mom) organized a pool party for us at a friend of her's house and it was so much fun! We pulled up to the house and we were greeted by the house owners and Mrs. Ballinger, who had a gift for us. Each girl got a large towel with their name stitched into it, perfect for trying off after the pool! Once we walked into the back yard there was SO much food and drinks, it was sort of overhelming! There was a pool with a volleyball net that some girls got a game going. There was bags (or corn hole as Ohio-ans call it!!) along with French darts in the back that a few of us got a little tournament going (I swear Tiff and Scott cheated at bags!). We all swam for a while, played some games, and just hung out. After all the munching on the snacks laid out we had barbeque chicken for dinner followed by a make your own sundae station which was amazing! Once we left the house I'm pretty sure no one could move we were all so full!

Today we are preparing for practice as if it is a game and doing an inner-squad Red vs. Black scrimmage. This will help to prepare our freshman for the way we prepare for Friday-Sunday games during the season. It's really great that we can get them all prepared for Friday-Sunday games before we actually have them so they know what to expect! Hopefully the weather stays nice as it's looking a little cloudy out!

2 more days till our preseason game and the Bearcats are looking good! Despite some injuries, the heat, and some tired legs everything is starting to look really sharp as we start to finalize things before our game against Ball State Friday. This year our team has really stepped up professionally as a team. We have a different approach to everything we do and it looks like it has already paid off. Everyone is on the same page with everyone else as we move forward in our journey of the 2011 season.

We were given Sunday off and it was SO nice to sleep past 7 am! The whole team met up for treatment and lunch which was good to see everyone still taking care of their bodies despite the day off. Monday we were back on the pitch ready to get back after it again! We started with another fitness test 120's and had 13 girls pass which is AMAZING for such a hard test! 120's are a very challenging, mentality based test and I was so excited to see so many girls push through the mental part and pass it! After running we opened it up a little bit and have started to go big sided more, stopping throughout to show the new players and refreshing the old players about what to do in certain situations on the defensive end. It has been a lot of learning but players have really caught on quickly.

Tuesday morning was all about switching the point of attack and moving quickly from defending to attacking and spreading out and vice versa of attacking to defending and how to pinch in and get into our shape. We really worked out some kinks and it was was obvious that everyone understood their roles when switching because the afternoon session looked great with how we adjusted when we won the ball or when we lost the ball.

This year the coaching staff has decided to take each class out for dinner during preseason to get more individualized with evertyone and tuesday night the coaches took the senior class out to dinner! We went to Buckheads at Newport on the Levee and it was a great time! We were all having so much fun talking to the coaches about our season, our families, and the players grilling the coaches with a million questions. It was a great night up until we were about to leave. Erin Petree drove all 7 seniors in her SUV and after we had finished dinner and went to the car to come back to Clifton we realized the car wouldn't start! Petey called AAA and they sent someone out to get us but that wasn't before we all tried to figure out what was wrong with the car ourselves! We had our phones out, car hood popped trying to use our best Google skills to determine what was wrong with her car! We all decided it was her starter and sure enough once the tow truck guy got there he said it was her starter! He worked on it for a few minutes and we were ready to head back to Clifton in no time!

Today we were given the morning session off to rehab and get treatment before we head to lifting at 1:30 so we are all heading into the training room to do extra pool workouts, cold tub, hot tub, stretch, get stim, or whatever will help our bodies feel recovered! It's a long season and the last thing we want is avoidable injuries! I'm off to help Tiff carry some groceries to our locker room! The coaches have been AWESOME about making sure our fridge and cabinets are filled with food and drinks! Make sure to gametracker our game Friday versus Ball State if you are unable to make it out to Muncie to support the Bearcats!

Go Bearcats---RAWWWWWWR!

KP #14

Seniors hanging out while the AAA guy works on Petey's car in the backround!